


His Last Illusion

by CedanyTheBold



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Hurt, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 12:08:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7170488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CedanyTheBold/pseuds/CedanyTheBold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John knows Sherlock is never coming back. Sherlock returns from the "dead" only to find him gone, and mourns the loss of his only friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Last Illusion

**Author's Note:**

> Just finished The Sign of Three today after kind of abandoning TV in general for the past year or so. Two more episodes to go, and then I play the waiting game...
> 
> Enjoy the angst and fluff.

John Watson shuffled around his room packing up the last of his boxes. He was leaving Baker Street for good. Downstairs, all of Sherlock’s things had been left untouched—the mess of chemistry equipment on the kitchen table, stacks of papers on the desk—all sat as he had left them, gathering dust. Mrs. Hudson claimed she didn’t know what to do with it, but John knew that she was keeping everything in a vain hope that someday, the taciturn detective might come back. 

John was beginning to think he really was dead. It had been seven months, and he’d not heard a word from Sherlock, or even Mycroft. Not that he really thought Mycroft would tell him anything. 

He sighed, hoisted the box under his arm, and went downstairs. 

The air was eerily still as he took one last look around the sitting room. Even after all this time he expected to see Sherlock sprawled on the couch or poised in front of the window with his violin. But there was never anything but suffocating silence. 

Mrs. Hudson met him at the door. 

“Oh—right.” John said, shifting the box and fumbling for the key in his pocket. 

She raised a hand to stop him. “Oh, no.” she said. “I just wanted to see you off. Keep it, just in case…”

“He’s not coming back,” he said abruptly. “I think he would have by now if he was going to. We would have heard something.”

The landlady nodded, wringing the dishtowel she held in her hands. “Well, then…”

John took her shaking hand in his for a brief moment. “Goodbye, then. Thanks for everything.”

He turned and left, closing the door of 221B behind him for the last time. 

*********************

Survival, Sherlock told himself. This was survival. Not fear. The primitive feeling of the hairs rising on the back of his neck at every sound was basic human instinct. 

They were after him. 

He didn’t know how long he’d been on the run. Weeks, months…it didn’t matter. He had vital information, and they were trying to get it from him. 

A twig snapped. 

He got up, feeling lightheaded. How long had it been since he’d eaten? It wasn’t important. What was important was that he did not get caught. John would tell him he was being an idiot; how could he expect not to get caught when he was so weak from hunger? But then…

John. 

Damn John. John had nothing to do with this. He was merely a distant memory, never to be seen or heard from again. 

Then he fell. Again. When had he gotten so clumsy? If only he had just…

But he didn’t even have time to finish the thought as everything went black. 

**********************

John Watson was no stranger to pain. He had fought in a war. He had been shot, for God’s sake. He had seen people get blown to pieces, and there had been nothing he could do but comfort them as they breathed their last. He was a doctor, yes, and a good one. But he couldn’t perform miracles. 

Above all, he was a soldier. He was stoic. He carried all the grief and hurt with him until…

Until it had nearly killed him. 

He was weak, after all. He needed therapy. And he had just begun to heal, to live again.

Maybe that was why losing Sherlock was worse than any other pain he had felt before. 

John stood up and walked out of the cemetery, leaving a bunch of flowers behind, just as he did every week. 

**************************  
No. 

This was not how it was supposed to be. The furniture was not supposed to be coated in a layer of dust. The flat was not supposed to be silent. 

Mrs. Hudson wasn’t there. Sherlock had waited, watched her leave as she often did on weeknights, gone round to a friend’s place and wouldn’t be back for hours. Just as well. He needed to think without the easily excitable landlady getting in his way about how he wasn’t dead, how glad she was to have him back, how pleased John would be when she told him. 

John. 

Damn John. He had left. He had forgotten all about Sherlock, all about their misadventures. He had probably gone on to live a normal, sane, uncomplicated life. 

What kind of fool would give that up?

Sherlock crossed the room, stopping in front of John’s ratty old armchair, the blanket-turned-pillow draped over the back. He rested a hand on the faded green wool and sighed. Had John sat here, after he’d gone, staring at the empty chair opposite? He supposed so. It seemed like a very John thing to do. No, it seemed like an everybody-else-in-the-world-but-him thing to do. 

Sherlock flopped back into his old leather chair, two years’ worth of dust immediately clouding his shaking form. When had he gotten so soft? Another person had come and gone from his life, that was all. No one ever stuck around for long. But John had been more help to him over the years than any others ever had. He might even venture to call him a friend. He had, in fact, just before…

There was a sudden burning sensation of the eyes, a tightening of the throat. Sherlock tried to ignore it, blame it on the dust. But he knew the truth. He was not a sociopath. He was still just the lost, lonely, freakishly intelligent little boy that no other kids wanted to play with and so had spent his time filling his head with stories and idolizing the cold, callous villains that gave the protagonists a run for their money. He would be like them. He would not care what anyone thought. He would do as he pleased without concern for who he might hurt in the process. Not then, and not ever. And it had worked. Until now. 

He let his head drop into his hands. No one was here to see the great Sherlock Holmes in all his misery. There was no one to fool with his constant charade of aloofness. 

Worst of all, there was no John—the one and only person in all the world he had ever enjoyed the company of. 

Before he knew what was happening, a shudder arose in him. The shudder turned to a sob, and then the tears finally came. Decades’ worth of bitter sorrow and despair and loneliness sprang forth from the ducts which had long held them back as Sherlock let out the most pitiful sounds he’d ever heard, and was very glad of the fact that no one could hear them but him. 

It felt good, though. 

Once his little pity party was over, he would delete that realization from his memory. 

***************************

John went to the cemetery the following week with a cluster of irises in hand. When he got to the glossy black tombstone, something caught his eye. The withered flowers from last week had been removed, and in their place was a sprig of tiny blue flowers. 

Forget-me-nots. 

John drew a shaky breath as he knelt to pick them up. 

“Sherlock?” he wondered aloud.


End file.
